


Sacrifice

by ladydragona



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crowley is Summoned (Good Omens), M/M, Mentions of kidnapping, POV Outsider, established relationship there in the background, mentions of human sacrifice, minor blood and self harm, not as scary as it could have been
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:54:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27307339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladydragona/pseuds/ladydragona
Summary: Demon summoning is dangerous business, one should probably make sure they know who, and what, they are they are calling upon.Written for Racketghosts 13 Days of Halloween, day 13: Ritual
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 188





	Sacrifice

The old cathedral had sat empty for decades. A combination of not enough parishioners, mounting repair bills, and a minor scandal that had sent all the oldest priests packing had done the place in well before anyone had thought to try and stop it. In recent years the people of the village mostly tried to ignore the crumbling stone eyesore it had become and occasionally indulge their eldest relatives when they told stories of going there when they were young.

Which was probably why no one noticed when, a few weeks before Halloween, a few people could be seen coming and going on the unkempt grounds. Like wraiths wrapped in shadows, cloaked individuals weaved their way in between old, dilapidated, long forgotten graves. If one payed attention one could see the paths they forged in the waist high grass, might catch a glimpse of flickering light in the twilight hours.

No one looked. No one saw. No one wanted to see. Over the years tall-tales and rumors had thoroughly embedded themselves in the local psyche. Pets disappearing, strange sounds in the middle of the night, and even stories of grisly murders that could never be fully verified or debunked. Children often dared their classmates to spend an evening between it’s derelict walls for bragging rights, none lasted the entire night.

So as the full moon rose and night-time parties began, the cloaked figures converged on the old church. Slipping between its doors one by one.

A few scattered candles shed weak flickering light across dusty pews, thick cobwebs, and crumbling stonework. Most of the pews had either been overturned or shoved to the far walls making a large open space in the center.

Meryl had never been one hundred percent on board with Derricks plan. It all seemed too easy, too straight forward. If all it took was drawing a few funny symbols and chanting in Latin to get whatever you wanted, why hadn’t more people done it? Granted it, apparently, also required a living sacrifice but she was sure there were plenty of people, just like them, who were willing to give up one strangers life to achieve their goals.

She still wasn’t sure she was on board with the whole sacrificing thing either. Derrick insisted the book was clear: a virgin sacrifice, virgin as in someone who’s blood had never been used in a ritual before, was essential. And as much as Meryl didn’t like it, Derrick was their leader. He was the one who’d studied Latin in college, he owned the book, and he was the one who had experience in these sorts of rituals. So he was the one who made the rules.

All that didn’t help the queasiness she felt when Robert stomped in with their unconscious intended sacrifice thrown over his shoulder just an hour before midnight.

“Is that her?” Meryl asked, trying not to let her uneasiness show. If Derrick thought she was having second thoughts he’d boot her right out, she knew.

Robert grunted an affirmative and slung their captive onto the waiting alter. Her head made a thunk as it landed on the hard stone.

“Watch it!” Derrick snapped from the pulpit just a feet away. “We need her alive for the ritual! Don’t have time to find another one, so if you kill her before we even get started this whole thing will be for naught.”

“Bitch is heavy.” Robert complained.

Derrick sighed. “Just go get changed.”

Robert grumbled under his breath but did as he was asked, leaving Meryl alone with Derrick and their captive.

She felt bad for the poor woman and she hoped she stayed unconscious. Meryl couldn’t imagine how terrifying it would be to wake up after being drugged, surrounded by hooded strangers chanting a foreign language.

“Meryl, you need to bind her to the alter.”

“W-what?”

Derrick frowned. “Tie her up! No telling how long she’ll stay pliant like this. Don’t want her getting up and disrupting anything, do we?”

Meryl shook her head and retrieved the rope from her bag on the dusty floor. A lead weight made itself known as she approached the stone alter where their sacrifice laid. A threadbare, moth eaten, cloth still covered it. They hadn’t bothered to remove it when they had thrown out the tarnished communion goblets and empty collection box that use to call the alter home.

She hadn’t grown up religious, parents being too busy to take hours out of their Sundays to sit and listen to some old man drone on about how to be a ‘good person’. It still felt like sacrilege to tie ropes to an innocent woman's wrists and ankles and then hammer the pitons the ropes were attached to into the stone floor. Each ping of the hammer chiseling a mark on her own soul.

She couldn’t help but wonder if she wouldn’t be in this situation if her parents had been as diligent about a religious education as they had been in her interest in maths.

Once their prisoners arms and legs were securely fastened on the old alter that had perhaps at one point in history been a place of holy reverence, Meryl had to turn away to get a hold of her resolve. This was a necessity and besides, Derrick had made it perfectly clear there was no going back once they had all agreed. They were in this together and she was already complicit in the kidnapping, chickening out now would gain her nothing. “Anything else, boss?”

Derrick shook his head as the others started filing out of the back rooms, black hoods and cloaks causing the lit candles to cast their faces in terrifying shadows.

She watched Derrick leave the pulpit. A cooler had already been set up nearby, its white and blue plastic stood out like a sore thumb among the rustic wood pews, crumbling stone, and cloaked people. Derrick opened the lid, large leather bound book balanced on one arm, and pulled out a medical bag of blood. He poured the viscous fluid into an old stone basin and motioned for them all to gather around the desecrated alter.

“My dear fellows, we come together this evening under the light of the full moon, blessed by All Hallows Eve. Tonight is the night we rise from our mundane lives and take power for ourselves!”

A few murmured agreements followed this proclamation, Meryl one of them, but she couldn’t quite shake the lead weight of uneasiness that had settled in her belly.

Derrick approached the eleven of them, one by one, offering a small stone knife and watching as they slit their palms and dripped blood that welled from the cut into the basin. With each new addition Derrick silently mouthed words from his book.

When it finally came Meryl’s turn, she started at the knife, caked in the others blood. She didn’t want to do this. She really, really, didn’t want to do this. For a wild moment she imagined herself shoving Derrick, the blood he’d collected spilling down the front of his black robes and onto the floor. Imagined herself turning and running down the center aisle of the church, throwing open the old oak doors, and making a mad dash to her old lorry. Meryl wanted to leave and never look back, but when she came back to herself everyone was watching her, Derricks dark cold eyes boring into her own.

She took the knife, holding it in her trembling hand before bringing it across her palm. She gasped and hissed at the sharp pain, feeling her stomach rolling at the sight of blood welling up from the cut

Derrick roughly grabbed her wrist and held it over the basin. Watching her blood run rivets across her palm and drip to join the viscous pool.

Meryl cradled her hand to her chest once Derrick released her. He offered no one bandages or any way to stem the flow.

He set the basin on the alter next to their captive and reached into the cooler pulling out another container of blood, this one a small vial. He poured the contents in with the rest, stirring the entire concoction with the knife as he continued to wordlessly chant. Once satisfied, Derrick pulled a thick paintbrush from a pocket in his robe and dipped it into the blood. Watching Derrick paint a circle around the alter would have been dull were it not for the throbbing reminder in her palm.

He’d actually started speaking out loud now, quietly, but loud enough for a few words to be made out. Meryl didn’t know what language it was, she assumed Latin, but serpenti, cognitionis, potentia, and sanguis were clear enough. When the circle was complete he painted strange symbols and shapes around the outside of it. The final symbol, and most distinct, stood out. Most had been just a line or two, simple. This one was a complicated mess of swirling lines that, at the right angle, might have looked like multiple infinity symbols stacked together.

When he was done Derrick set the bowl aside and addressed them again. At this point the poor woman had started to stir, her eyes slowly blinking open in a haze.

“Clasp hands, my brothers! So that we may call forth the dark powers and claim our prize!”

Meryl winced as Robert grasped her cut palm and fought back from gagging as she grabbed the hand of the man on her other side and felt his wet, sticky palm against hers.

Derrick bowed his head and began chanting in a strange tongue, the sounds of which made the hair on the back of Meryl’s neck stand up, though that might have also been from their captive who had woken up enough to begin struggling and screaming around her gag. He repeated what ever the chant was three times, four times, five times. And Meryl was beginning to wonder if anything was actually going to happen, perhaps all this occult nonsense really _had_ been nonsense after all.

That thought was quickly abandoned when, on the sixth repeat, a strong wind from nowhere tugged at their robes. The candles around them stuttered and flickered and threatened to go out entirely, to cast them all in deep darkness. A great howling followed the wind drowning out Derrick’s chanting and their captives frantic noises, bringing with it a chill so biting it froze them to the bone through their thick robes.

It was when the blood painted circle began to glow a sickening red that all doubt was erased from Meryl’s mind. The painted blood flaked and was lifted in the air, either by the wind or some other force, leaving behind red light that leaked black smoke. The smoke followed the swirling wind around and around the alter following the same counter clockwise path Derrick had painted it in.

Meryl squinted, trying to keep the dust and debris and paper the wind had picked up from the floor of the old church out of her eyes, as the smoke began to coalesce. Solidifying into a more defined shape. It surrounded the alter in thick shifting ropes wider than most men.

And all at once everything stopped. The wind, the howling, the chanting. The silence deafening in the aftermath. Meryl stood shaking like a new spring leaf. They really had done it. Summoned… something.

The smoke had stopped moving as well, at least for a moment that didn’t last. A loud rasping shifting brought Meryl’s attention sharply to it. The smoke-no. Not smoke anymore. Even in the dim and inadequate candle light it was obvious the smoke had became something else. Something even more terrifying.

Meryl’s eyes wound around and around and around, up and up and up. A massive muscular body wrapped repeatedly around the alter and up into the air. Shiny black and red scales gleaming in the firelight. Until finally her eyes came to rest on the huge diamond shaped head, eyes glowing a sulfurous yellow, of the largest snake she had ever seen.

“Whatsss thissss?”

Crowley hated being summoned. It was one of the few things about being a Demon of Hell that he couldn’t ignore even after retiring. Once it happened he was completely powerless to stop from being taken from wherever or whatever he was doing and dropped into an unknown place surrounded by people in ridiculous robes chanting incorrect Latin at him.

He was lucky, however, that such a thing was a fairly rare occurrence. It wasn’t just any old human that could draw some funny lines on the ground and chant some nonsense and actually succeed in getting a demon. It required bonafide magical talent and an unshakable belief that it would work. Even the tiniest seed of doubt would render the ritual inoperable.

So it was safe to say he’d been caught off guard when he went to grab another bottle of wine from the South Downs cottage kitchen he shared with Aziraphale and found his hands unable to grasp the bottle because they’d been turned to smoke.

“Aw, fuck.” Crowley swore.

“Is everything alright, dear?” Aziraphale called from the living room, the beginning score of Nightmare Before Christmas playing in the background.

“Yup.” Crowley responded, popping the ‘p’ at the end and feeling more and more of his corporation change without his consent. “Sorry ‘bout this, angel. Be back in a tick.”

“What? What do you mean-” Crowley didn’t get to hear the end of Aziraphale’s question because he was being hurled though space, out of their cottage, and towards an unknown destination.

It was a similar experience to hopping through the phone and internet lines except he had no control over when or where he stopped and there was no electrical zing that usually came with being that intimate with moving electrons. As disorienting as summoning always was, Crowley could tell he was being pulled north. Though that wasn’t incredibly useful. They lived just outside of Brighton in the South Downs, the large majority of the UK was ‘north’.

As the tugging on his demonic essence began to relax and the ritual started trying to put him back into a corporation, Crowley made a decision. Sure getting summoned was more an inconvenience than anything else but they’d had a nice, quiet, Halloween planned. Watch a movie Aziraphale hadn’t seen yet, maybe argue over which holiday it was better suited for, and go to bed early with his angel.

Unfortunately some upstart humans had a put a wrench in those well laid plans, and it _was_ All Hallows Eve, surely no one could fault him for taking this chance to have a little fun.

Crowley allowed himself to stretch, to relax into a much larger shape. A shape that was as natural to him as breathing was to humans. It was his original demonic shape. Legs and arms and soft skin were things he specifically had to _make an effort_ to have. It required focus and intent to look human and letting that go reminded him of the last time he wore a corset and the feeling of freedom after taking one off after a long day.

He fell in ropes around the center point, drawn in by whatever mess of a concoction the humans had dreamed up would force him to appear. As the magic settled and his serpentine body solidified, Crowley flicked his tongue, tasting the air. He wasn’t surprised to find the taste and scent of blood heavy around him. Humans often thought using blood, specifically their own, would strengthen the spell or make it harder for him to refuse them. And despite his efforts against it the unsanitary misconception had prevailed for centuries. On the next pass of his tongue he tasted the perspiration and cloying fear of multiple humans.

Crowley shifted his massive coils, the edge of something hard digging into his muscles. Apparently he had manifested wrapped around something. He glanced around and met the terrified eyes of who he assumed was one of his summoners, the flickering candle light reflected off her tear-filled eyes as she shook at the sight of him.

No one had stepped forward to address him yet, but before he could start up his ‘big mean demon’ act he heard a faint whimper from somewhere in the middle of his coils

“Whatsss thissss?” He shifted his head around to see what had made the noise, it was likely too faint for more human ears, and came eye to eye with a terrified human woman. This one was tied down to a stone table of some sort, gagged, and was full on crying.

He shifted again, trying to make sure he wasn’t crushing her. Being this large was a pain in the arse on a good day and why he rarely ever shifted to this form anymore. Snakes continued to grow their entire lives, and he’d been alive for 6000 years, you do the math.

“Great Serpent!”

Crowley hissed in surprised and whipped his head around. He’d been too concerned making sure the poor human wasn’t hurt and hadn’t even realized there were more humans behind him. Most of them had backed up, a few tripping over the what was left of broken wooden pews. Had they summoned him in a church? His scales weren’t burning so it much have already been desecrated, or had been when they performed the ritual. There was one human, though. One who hadn’t backed off and was standing just outside the formerly glowing circle, a large book open in his hands.

Crowley focused on him, head swaying side to side. “Are you the one who brought me here?” He asked. There was usually a ring leader who thought themselves to be of importance.

“Yes! I am the one who summoned you into this world!”

Crowley would have rolled his eyes if he could.

“And now I offer up a sacrifice to you, in exchange for your service and ancient knowledge!”

Well that… that was just a bad deal all around. One measly human soul for service and knowledge? He got more than that on a slow day on the M25.

“You mean thisss?” He asked and shifted enough for the woman in the center of his coils to be visible.

“Yes! She is yours to do with as you please, Oh Great One.”

Said woman struggled with all her might at hearing that and screamed for all she was worth around the gag. Her distress only seemed to make her captive sneer.

And it was making Crowley incredibly uncomfortable.

He might be a Demon of Hell, retired or no, but actually hurting humans had always been a hard line he didn’t cross. Watching them hurt each other was painful, but they had free will and could do as they liked as long as they left him out of it.

This wasn’t ‘leaving him out of it’. Bugger.

He hissed threateningly. “You think thissss measssly ssssacrifice is enough to ssssate my appetite? You look much more filling. Perhapsss I’ll ssssswallow you insstead.”

Most of the summoners scrambled back even farther, backing up against the far walls or hiding behind overturned pews. The supposed ringleader, however, did not back down.

“You don’t frighten me, Great Serpent. You are bound with my blood and the blood of my fellows. You have no power over us except that which I give you!”

Crowley hissed out a chuckle. It was always fun when they thought they had the upper hand. “Isss that what you think, little mortal?”

The summoner lifted his head high. “You are bound to me, Serpent. I know the powers that brought you here and I can send you back to your hellish domain if you will not submit.”

Crowley continued his hissing laugh as he moved, taking in the rest of the church. Run down, falling apart, dirty. Even pages of what looked like bibles and hymnals littered the floor. One door that looked like it lead outside and two more on each side of the pulpit. He also counted eleven summoners, not including their ‘ego-the-size-of-a-blimp’ leader.

It was unfortunate, but not surprising, that every single one of them had black tarnished souls. You don’t offer up a human sacrifice to a demon with full intent of the demon killing them with out some consequences. Even if the demon doesn’t actually follow through, you’re intent was to kill another human. Things like that leave deep stains.

He circled back around to be face to face with the leader who was still oozing confidence.

Time to knock his ego down a few notches.

Crowley bared his fangs, longer than any human arm, and struck.

Screams echoed in the cavernous church, bouncing off the stone walls. A mad scramble quickly followed, but when the summoners reached the doors they wailed in terror at finding all of them locked and barred. All they could do was pound on the doors and beg for their lives or turn and look to see their leader caught in the jaws of terrible demon snake they helped him summon.

Crowley was delighted at the ringleaders screaming and flailing, even as he hated the taste and texture of his wool robes. At least if they’d been cotton they wouldn’t have been so itchy.

The summoner quickly dissolved into crying and begging for his life now that he realized some blood drawn circle and squiggly lines couldn’t keep a demon trapped. Crowley thought it was a good lesson to learn, perhaps he’d be more cautious in the future.

“Mmm… Tassssty…”

“No! No! Please! I’ll do anything!” Voice cracking and going horse with with his screaming.

Crowley dropped the fool unceremoniously on the hard stone floor, glad to be rid of the itchy wool.

He laid there for a moment, as if he couldn’t quite believe he was still a live and not demon food. He recovered quickly though and crawled frantically towards his dropped book. Crowley swiped it out of the way with the tip of his tail.

“I don’t think sssso.”

The summoner let out a shriek and cowered on the floor, covering his head with his hands and trembling. A faint hint of urine wafted up from the pathetic man.

Crowley snickered at the sight. They always talked a big game at the start, thinking themselves important and powerful, but they could never keep it up once faced with real power.

He took another glance around the room. All the others were in a similar state: curled on the ground and whimpering. The poor woman whom they had intended as a sacrifice was exactly where they tied her, eyes clenched shut and staying as still as stone apart of the occasional tear leaking from her eyes.

Oops.

He hadn’t intended to frighten her too, but whats done was done. No going back now. He hissed in her direction with just a hint of power behind it. Her sobbing calmed and slowed as his will fell over her mind, lulling her into a fitful sleep. She would wake up in the morning having slept terribly and assuming this entire fiasco had been nothing more than a terrifyingly vivid dream with a new found fear of snakes, robes, and old churches.

Well, he’d done about all he could do here. Time to hammer home the consequences of summoning powers beyond your control and get home before Aziraphale started to worry more than he already was.

“All right you lot. Guesssss I’ve played with you long enough.”

A few whimpers and cries rose up at that, but Crowley ignored them in favor of concentrating on shrinking down, growing limbs, and making sure he had approximately the correct number of vertebrae.

Crowley shook out his arms and legs once he was back to being mostly man-shaped. Transforming from snake to humanoid always left him with the nagging feeling he’d forgotten something important, but he figured as long as his arms and legs did what he expected them to everything else would fall into place.

He hooked his glasses in his shirt collar as he stalked over to the cowering form of the summoners leader still curled up face down on the floor. Crowley shoved at the mans side with the toe of his snakeskin boot until the wretch rolled to face him.

Face red and blotchy and streaked with dirt and tears and blood leaked from his lip as if he’d bitten it; He looked a right mess.

Crowley studied him a moment, taking in his disheveled appearance as well as closer look at the state of his soul. It was no surprise to find him falling very clearly on Hell’s side with not a single shred of guilt or shame. Crowley suspected the rest of his followers would be the same.

Humans have such a capacity for greatness and kindness, but also an equal capacity for wickedness and evil. He’d experienced the breadth of humanity. The good, the bad, the mundane, and the wonderful. These people were just a small drop in the bucket.

Crowley frowned down at him. “You’re not going to do this again.” It wasn’t a question and offered no room for argument.

“No! No never! Please oh Great-”

“Because if I catch wind of you trying again, this is just the tip of the iceberg of what I can do.”

The man opened his mouth, perhaps to beg for his life or agree and make grandiose promises, but Crowley had been done with this from the moment the summoning had pulled him from his home and angel. Not to mention he’d already missed some of his favorite parts of the movie.

Crowley snapped his fingers upwards, pulling infernal power from down below, and sent the man to somewhere in the Himalayas. He wouldn’t die, that just wouldn’t be sporting, but he would be miserable.

A few gasps erupted around the room when the leader disappeared and Crowley made quick work of the few who attempted to run again. Snapping his fingers again and sending them to various parts of the world. Never anywhere particularly dangerous or deadly just places where it would be exceedingly difficult to explain how they’d gotten there.

One by one all the summoners were sent away until he was left alone with their poor captive. With a quick glance into her mind he pulled the location of her home and with a final snap sent her on her way. Hopefully she wouldn’t be too traumatized when she woke.

He took a final look over the desecrated church. Aziraphale would probably feel bad for it, but Crowley couldn’t find it in himself to care much about the place. Humans abandoned places of worship all the time, it was a waste of energy to get upset about it in his opinion.

Crowley prepared to send himself back home, wondering what he would tell Aziraphale. He didn’t think the angel would mind that he’d had a bit of fun at these humans expense. The summoners were on his former side after all. But a shuffling sound behind the pulpit caught his attention.

He snapped his head in that direction and hissed, “Whossss there?”

A woman peaked out from behind the pulpit. She locked eyes with him for only a second before yelping and cowering behind it again. He vaguely recognized her as the one he’d seen when he first arrived. Somehow she’d stayed quiet and hidden while he teleported her cohorts away.

“Don’t make me come over there.” He growled.

She let out a whimper, but inched her away back into sight. “Please don’t kill me. Please, I’ll do anything.” She sniffed as fresh tears flowed down her cheeks.

He hated this. Play acting as the ‘Big Bad Demon’ was all well and good in the moment, but once the high wore off the fun ceased as well.

“Seems you’re the last one left.”

She flinched but nodded quickly. “Yes, I-yes.”

Crowley grunted. He was tired from all the use of his powers, they weren’t infinite after all, and wanted to go home to curl up with Aziraphale. Sleep for a few days maybe. “Good. Lets go.” He said and turned towards the front doors.

He could hear her sputtering behind him as he crouched to pick up the book he assumed held the ritual they’d used. It was useless in the hands of the vast majority of humanity, but better safe than sorry and besides, it was probably unique and Aziraphale would like that.

“I won’t repeat myself.” He threw over his shoulder, sauntering down the center of the church.

She yelped and ran to catch up. “You-you aren’t going to kill me?”

Crowley glanced at her from the corner of his eye, her soul was tainted just like the rest but there was also a spark of guilt, of shame. It was possible she could make a comeback from this. Humans had the option of such things, repentance, redemption, forgiveness, that demons never would. He’d made peace with his lot in this world a long time ago but it still astounded him that humans, with their tremendously short lives, could make such drastic changes. “No.”

She quieted, pondering that, as they left. Crowley threw open the church doors and strutted into cool night lit only by the full moon. “You are going leave this village. You are never going to bother that poor woman ever again. And you are never going to attempt another summoning. Is that clear?”

She nodded quickly. “Yes! Absolutely! Won’t happen again, I swear it!”

“Good. Now, I’m feeling generous. So you have one minute to ask me what ever you like, then I’m leaving and I never want to see you again.”

She seemed surprised, but only thought for a moment. “So, you really weren’t ‘bound to our will’ or anything?” She asked skeptically.

Crowley snorted. “What? Noooo. Look, there is only one-two, ok, three beings in all of creation that can make me do anything.”

“And who would that be?”

“Why don’t you guess for me.”

“Well, since you’re a demon I would assume one is the devil?” Crowley nodded at her. “And if the devil exists, then the next guess would be... God?” Crowley nodded again, but more grudgingly this time. “Then… who is the third?”

“My husband.” He said with a cheeky grin.

She stared, flabbergasted, for a moment before asking “Demons can get married?”

Crowley only grinned wider. “This one did.” He glanced down at his ridiculously expensive watch. “Speaking of, he’ll be expecting me back home. You remember what you have to do?” He asked, giving her a pointed look.

She nodded eyes wide and fearful again. “Er, yes. Leave. Never bother the woman. Never summon a demon.”

“Perfect. Now I hope I never see you again, eh? Next time I won’t be so accommodating. Ciao!” And with a snap of his fingers, Crowley disappeared into nothing. Leaving a very confused, slightly terrified, human woman behind.

**Author's Note:**

> Page-break is mine, do not use without permission!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Sacrifice [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27308980) by [ladydragona](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladydragona/pseuds/ladydragona)




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